As multiple experts—including The Heritage Foundation’s Steven Groves—testified, it is both unnecessary and unwise for the United States to become a party to the Disabilities Convention.

The rights of Americans with disabilities are already protected under a number of federal laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504), the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990, and the Fair Housing Act as amended in 1988. Any modification or expansion of such protections can and ought to be achieved through the legislative process.

However, U.S. ratification of the CRPD is more than merely superfluous; the CRPD threatens American sovereignty in a variety of ways.

As with other human rights treaties, the CRPD established a treaty body composed of unelected “experts”—the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities—that evaluates the compliance of state parties to the treaty every four years and issues recommendations for how they might improve in fulfilling their obligations. Too often these U.N. treaty bodies seek to broaden the scope of the treaties that created them, redefining terms and expanding language that had been painstakingly negotiated by the U.N. member states that initially signed onto them—and blatantly disregarding national sovereignty.

Among the most noteworthy of these treaty bodies are the committee that deals with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and the one that polices states in their compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

The U.S. has ratified CERD treaty and has therefore been subjected to browbeating and extreme liberal moralizing on the part of the committee’s so-called experts, whose recommendations have included restoring voting rights to convicted felons and promoting multiculturalism in grade school curriculums.

Thankfully, despite extensive efforts on the part of its advocates, the CEDAW treaty has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate. However, the CEDAW committee’s recommendations to other countries provide ample evidence of the sort of directives it would give to U.S. policymakers should the U.S. ever become a party to CEDAW.

If the U.S. were to ratify the CRPD, U.S. policies would be subjected to the oversight and commentary of the CRPD committee, which could issue unlimited recommendations that the U.S. would be expected to implement. This prospect should be especially concerning to the parents and caregivers of disabled Americans, whose decision making authority would be subjected to the pronouncements of international “experts” and whose rights would be undermined by the CRPD’s language concerning the “best interests of the child” and its lack of explicit protection of parental rights.

Other language in the CRPD is troubling, too, such as its lack of a clear definition of disability, which it defines as “an evolving concept.” Although seemingly beyond the scope of a treaty dealing with rights and protections of the disabled, the CRPD also revisits the recurring and contentious U.N. debates surrounding the definitions of “reproductive health” and “reproductive rights” as they relate to so-called abortion rights.

In spite of specific statements made by CRPD signatories that the inclusion of the phrase “sexual and reproductive health” is not intended to include abortion, U.N. officials and other abortion advocates have pointed to the CRPD to further build their case in favor of abortion as a human right.

The U.S. Senate should decline to ratify the CRPD, as ratifying it would subject the U.S. to untold threats against its sovereignty and invite further intrusion by U.N. officials into sensitive social and domestic policies. If the rights of disabled Americans need further protection or clarification, Congress and state governments should seek remedies through the appropriate legislative processes.

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Only ratification needed id GET AMERICA out of UN and GET UN out of America. All Senators voting for ratification of any other UN proposal should target him/her for removal from Congress. UN continued presence in America means continued efforts to effect the FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION [destruction from within] of America. Keep the faith and the conversation going.

i am a patriotic american citizen,an american vet,and i would like to know who the hell gave the un,or any other entity,country,the right to try and tell us how we can live our lives?or if our constitution dose'nt give us that right.why dose'nt the congress tell them to back off and quit giving them money that we as tax payers have given our gov.maybe we should just quit paying taxs and then they would'nt have the money to give away and we could use it to put our people back to work!!!!

Just another move by the Obama administration to weaken our nations sovereignty, call it "outsourcing" of our rights and freedoms to better match what other Nations think it should be, and the Obama administration is going along with it !

Tell the UN American U.N. to take a hike. Never ratify any treaty with the U.N.. The U.N. is run by people that seek to control the entire world. I do believe that their are 193 countries that are involved with the U.N., out of that 193 countries, the United States funds 25% of the U.N. budget, and yet the U.N. wants more from us. They want our money, they want our land, they want our oceans, they want our fresh water, they want our guns, they want your cars, and they want to herd us into sustainable biospheres (cities).

The UN should get back to its core mission: Attempting to bring about world peace. The best way to do that would be to kick dictatorships like Egypt, Iran, the PRC, and Putin's Russia, out of the UN. Replace Russia with
Germany, and replace the PRC, with Taiwan.

Hear hear! As I read the article and scrolled thru the comments, that's exactly what I was thinking and was going to comment. You deftly beat me to the draw. Yes, what about 'peace'. Let's start with North Korea which, technically, is still at war for the last 60 years. How about the UN doing something about that? Huh?

Don't ratify any such UN treaty while Obama remains in office. It's a ruse to transfer sovereignty to the UN and other unaccountable multilateral organizations by treaty so that their liberal agenda can be advanced in spite of any Republican gains in Congress and the White how now or in the future. In fact, we really should minimize our involvement in the UN, and reduce our funding of it. It's time for the UN to move out of NYC, too. Let them move the UN HQ and all the Secretariat staff and diplomatic missions to some miserable Third World disaster area. Let NYC redevelop that prime real estate for a more productive use.

The UN does not have our countries best interests in mind but will take our money and use it against us.
Why on earth would we continue to give other countries and the UN money when all they want to do is cause the United States harm?
No treaties, no money…let us alone…we want to continue to be free.

We must get out of the UN and stop paying for all their evil international power grabs. We are broke. Anyway, the US Constitution is SUPREME. Anything repugnant to the Constitution is null and void. PERIOD.
This must be enforced at all costs.

If it is ratified do we get the blue helmeted turdworld heroes to rape, kill, rob, pillage, and torture americans if the UN decides we have contravened any part of the treaty?
Just wondering. This is how they have acted in the recent past.

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